


the art of scraping through

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hookups, M/M, Pining, canon typical drinking, honestly just so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: Justin Oluransi is not an actor.He can’t act to save his life. They call him on it all the time. Sometimes, though — mostly times like this, when the beat pounds through the marrow of his bones and Holster’s so close to him, laughing, so alive in the energy from the crowd and the lights and the kegster — sometimes he figures it out. He can fake it. Because swaying next to Holster, Ransom pretending his arm around his best friend’s shoulder is casual and not at all yearning, he’s the best goddamn actor in the fucking world.______________Holsom, from Ransom’s POV. A huge ole mess of pining and ways to get through it (or not get through it)





	the art of scraping through

____________

Justin Oluransi is not an actor.

Everyone knows it. There are Snap stories aplenty with his terrible renditions of  _ Titanic, _ long-winded tales of how long it takes him to act out the essence of an elephant, chirps running rampant in the locker room because of that one time he tried to get booze at the Murder Stop & Shop when he wasn’t 21, even though he’s bought alcohol for  _ years _ thanks to Canada’s sensible alcohol laws  _ and _ has a fake saying he’s from Vermont. 

He can’t act to save his life. They call him on it all the time. Sometimes, though — mostly times like this, when the beat pounds through the marrow of his bones and Holster’s so  _ close _ to him, laughing, so alive in the energy from the crowd and the lights and the kegster — sometimes he figures it out. He can fake it. Because swaying next to Holster, Ransom pretending his arm around his best friend’s shoulder is casual and not at all yearning, he’s the best goddamn actor in the fucking world.

“I’m gonna text April,” Holster says, slurring his words. 

Ransom is drunk but he’s not  _ that _ drunk, and he tells himself that’s the only reason why he says, “Fuckin’ terrible idea, don’t do that.” Holster patrol, pure and simple. Easy. “They have a match tomorrow, they’ll kill you if you, like. Get in her head now.”

Holster and April have a complicated relationship that Ransom might be too  _ that drunk _ to deal with right now. It’s damage control. He giggles a little. Holster patrol and damage control. He swats at Holster’s arm until Holster shuffles his phone back into his pocket. 

“Fine,” Holster says, sighing. The look he gives now speaks of unbearable frustration and the biggest case of cock blocking Ransom has ever seen. “You’re right I just. Ransss—” And the long S does nothing, it doesn’t, Ransom just breathes and focuses on the lights and refuses to think about it. “—Ransy I feel so good right now, I wanna make out with someone.”

He sounds so  _ needy _ . Ransom is this close to breathless, to saying  _ shut up  _ and kissing him. The difference between wanting to kiss the neediness out of his voice and wanting to make him sound even more torn up is a near thing. 

Ransom considers Holster in the vague, multicolored blur of lights. He could do it, is the thing. He knows how to push Holster’s buttons. He’s heard it enough times, from Holster telling him himself and from accidentally walking in on him with someone else. A few times from April even, before she’d gotten the memo that Ransom really wanted to know but not from her. 

It’d be easy. A brush up Holster’s sides where he’s always halfway between ticklish and turned on. Turning his head and grazing the soft part of his neck with his lips. Pushing Holster’s hair out of his face and saying,  _ you look so fucking good tonight, Holtzy, I wanna blow you here on the dance floor, right now, won’t you come for me so pretty like you did when it was me and you and April and March but just for me this time.  _ Easy. 

Ransom hooks his finger into Holster’s belt loop. 

“Holtzy I was thinking,” he says in a rush, tugging on the loop now, “if you wanted—”

“Is she winking at me?” Holster interrupts abruptly. “Or at you?”

He drops his hand. “What?”

Holster jerks his head toward a girl in the kind of shorts Ransom knows he likes with the kind of hair Ransom knows he likes to get his hands in. She is most definitely looking at Holster. Ransom’s heart plummets. 

“All you, bro,” he says. He trips over the words. 

Holster grins, shaking his hair. Ransom watches his broad back cut through the crowd like that beauty of a pass in the second period earlier. At the very last second, Holster shoots a look at him over his shoulder. Ransom gives him two thumbs up in response. He isn’t an actor, but he will be tonight. 

“M gonna get drunk,” he murmurs to no one. The last thing he sees before elbowing his way into the kitchen is the girl slipping her pinky into the exact same belt loop and Holster pushing his fingers into her hair before kissing her. 

____________

The party unofficially ends at 3in the morning. Ransom slumps in the green couch, watching some show about house hunting or something, and waits. He hears quiet footsteps on the stairs sometime around 4 and four beers later. The front door opens. Shuts quietly. 

Ransom’s up the steps before he knows it. Sometimes there’s just a burning need to  _ know,  _ to have things confirmed for you before you think too long on it. He pauses on the steps just outside the attic, breathing hard. Knuckles white where he’s holding so tight onto the door. 

“Safe yet?” he calls. He is just this side of shitfaced; he’s always managed his alcohol decently well. Most of the time.

Holster says, “Fuckin’ hell, yeah,” and he can hear his lazy, blissed out expression before going into the room. Ransom doesn’t look at him. He feels his eyes on him anyway. “Thanks for letting me take the room, Ransy. You’re a good bro.”

Ransom smirks at Holster now, ignoring the way he’s got both arms behind his head. How good he looks just kissed, the way his hair looks like someone’s just been pulling on it. There’s an eager red splotch making itself known on his collarbone. Ransom shoves down his feelings.  _ A good bro.  _ He’s managed it so far, eh?

“Got your back,” he says, and asks for deets like he would with anyone else. He pulls off his shirt and imagines how Holster’s lips would feel on his skin while Holster tells him what that girl could do with her mouth. 

____________

After that, it’s easy. It goes like this:

Ransom wingmans the shit out of Holster. Holster leaves with someone. Ransom goes home with a case of beer or a stained shirt, depending on which house they’re at. Sometimes both. Sometimes, neither. Sometimes it’s a hasty hookup in a locked bathroom, some guy under his hands and thighs and ass, eyes closed, pretending that it’s Holster. Acting. He should feel guilty about how many times he’s gotten off imagining it’s his best friend’s fingers inside him. He doesn’t, really. 

Holster says something about it now and then. 

“Thanks for the A, I got you next time, yeah?” after a party at the swim team house that left him with two guys and at least twelve hickeys and left Ransom complaining about Bio 403 with March via text. 

“Bro, you’re like fifteen miles away from me, what’s wrong?” shouted over the crush of people at a concert, Ransom trying to ignore the girl making eyes like they’re both a bed she wants to crawl into. 

_ “Hey,” _ sharply gentle after team exercise at the gym, hand waving in front of Ransom’s face while trying to hide the the stiff way he’s walking. “You okay? You know coach keep saying that the bike’s a marathon, not a—”

“A race, I get it,” Ransom snaps back. Holster drops it, but he feels the concern radiating from him even after he climbs into bed. Maybe even more so after he climbs into bed. He angrily bunches up his pillow and glares at the wall. “Stop it with the mother hen act, I don’t need it.”

“Oh,” Holster says, voice somehow both flat and uncertain. Ransom keenly feels the seconds pass while Holster deliberates saying something. 

After a few moments, there’s a slight pressure on his shoulder. He cranes his neck around to see Holster’s chin hooked on his arm, his blue eyes steady and serious. 

“What,” Ransom asks in something like a whisper. This close, he could kiss him if he leaned. Or asked, maybe.

“You’re so far away lately,” Holster says. His voice is muffled a little by Ransom’s blanket. “I don’t want to — mother hen, or anything. I just miss my best friend and I don’t know what’s wrong.” 

It’d be easy to say something small here, like  _ it’s bio, it’s kicking my ass _ or  _ just sore from practice  _ or even  _ that guy last night fucked me so good, d’you wanna hear about it?  _ He debates saying something bigger, like  _ why haven’t we ever made out for real  _ or  _ Holtzy I wanna put my hands on you or in you or wherever you want them.  _ These aren’t best friend sentences. 

Ransom shuts his eyes tight and squeezes his pillow. “I’m just kinda tired lately,” he says. It isn’t totally a lie. Most of why he’s tired is all the times he’s tried to get away from the fact of Holster in this room with someone who’s not him. 

Holster’s face clears. “Test anxiety?” he asks gently, and Ransom nods. A prick of guilt shoots through his stomach. He doesn’t think Holster catches it, but his eyebrows knit slightly. 

“Just gotta get through midterms,” Ransom says, and Holster kind of claps a hand onto his waist and sinks down onto his bed. He pulls his blankets tight over his shoulders and pretends he doesn’t feel all the millimeters they’re apart. 

____________

The next few days pass by sluggishly. They don’t talk much aside from  _ good morning _ and  _ night _ and  _ that asshole tailgated me to the Murder Stop & Shop again _ . Holster tries and fails so many times to set Ransom up at soccer parties that eventually Ransom goes out to the bars on a Tuesday and comes back with a guy who’s giggling too much to kiss properly. He’s buzzed in the angrily desperate kind of way he gets sometimes, mostly after realizing again the only person he wants is Holster and he has to pretend otherwise, and it’s not fair to himself or this guy of them to go through with this. He calls it off with the other man pressing him flat against the side of the bunk bed. It strikes him, as he tells the guy to  _ leave, please, I’m sorry  _ that he doesn’t even know his name. Ransom has his shirt off and jeans undone and his dick poking out of the zipper and doesn’t even know the guy’s name. He looks down at the ground, deflated.

Holster has a duck stuffed animal Lardo gave him as a birthday present that usually perches on his pillow. It must’ve fallen on the ground at some point during their fumbled touching; right now it stares up at Ransom accusingly. He sighs, stooping to pick it up, and tosses it on Holster’s bed.

The door opens. 

Ransom freezes, staring at Holster. Holster stares right back. 

“What’re you,” Holster starts, visibly confused. Ransom sees the moment he spots his dick. “Rans, what the f — that guy on the stairs, was that yours?”

Ransom says, “Yeah?” like it’s a question and Holster seems to crumple inward. 

Holster is a good actor. Ransom has witnessed first hand his impressions of Liz Lemon, Mufasa, Enjolras, and Buzz Lightyear. He always wins charades; downstairs in the kitchen, there’s a betting pool on who’s most likely to dethrone him. It’s been there since they moved into the Haus. He knows his face, his voice, his body so well he’s been known to fool their teammates’ mothers from time to time on the phone or after games. 

Holster can act. Ransom knows it. But this, here — the way his shoulders are drawn tight, the way he’s clenching his jaw, the studied avoidance of eye contact — this isn’t acting. 

And then all of a sudden he is. 

“Give me a head’s up next time,” Holster says, forcing a breezy air into his voice, and he slings his backpack onto his bed and takes out his laptop. 

Ransom thinks he checks out his dick while he does. He pulls up his boxers awkwardly, sliding off his jeans in favor of sweatpants. “I’m sorry,” he says. Holster gives him a nothing little half shrug. 

“Was it,” Holster says deliberately, “good?”

_ It wasn’t you,  _ Ransom almost says. He kind of — kind of really wants to. “Called it off.”

This makes Holster shut his laptop. He frowns. “Why?”

“Wanted something else,” Ransom says, and now he picks the duck off Holster’s pillow and climbs into his own bed. His heart is pounding so fast. “Something familiar. Better.”

He thinks Holster sucks in a sharp breath. He thinks he wants to hear that when they’re naked. 

“Rans,” Holster says. Ransom’s name is a question in his voice. 

Ransom says, “Yeah?”

“Are we okay? I mean. I’m sorry I saw your dick, it’s like a uh. Private moment, and all, but—”

“Are you complaining?”

That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. He mumbles  _ shit fuck dammit  _ inwardly, holding his breath. He can’t hear snoring, but sometimes Holster drifts off without it. There must’ve been a way he didn’t hear. These aren’t the lines he’s supposed to say.

He almost doesn’t catch it when Holster speaks.

“Not really,” he says softly. “Night, Rans.”

Ransom doesn’t fall asleep for another hour. When he can’t take it any longer, he shucks off his sweatpants and strokes himself through his boxers, imagining Holster climbing up and grinning and saying  _ want a hand? _ He catches his strangled cry in his pillow when he comes. 

The whole bunk bed rocks slightly a few minutes later in a rhythm he wishes he was more familiar with. He holds his breath, wide eyed. Holster’s quiet, too, but Ransom’s phone buzzes with a text seconds after the bed stops shaking. 

He checks it, holding his breath. It says,  _ sweet dreams.  _

Biting his lip, he types out,  _ you too, _ and he’d swear he feels Holster smile. 

____________

In the morning, Ransom wakes up holding the duck with soft hands. His fingers flutter over the fabric. 

Holster texts him around noon about getting lunch after his bio lab and it’s something closer to normal, like this whole  _ thing _ pressing on his chest is both lighter and heavier than it’s been in months. He texts back a  _ see ya at Annie’s  _ and for a second he nearly says  _ what’d you mean last night when you said sweet dreams _ .

He doesn’t. But Holster’s leg brushes his under the table and Holster is a little pink the way he is when he’s thinking about deets during class and trying not to. Ransom doesn’t say anything about it —  _ good bros,  _ right? — and yet—

“Sleep okay?” Holster says. He seems to take a very studied bite of his turkey sandwich, eyes focused on his hands. 

Ransom nearly chokes on his water. “Little hard to drift off, actually,” he says, and Holster looks at him. The pink in his cheeks is undeniable now. Ransom wants to kiss it. He clears his throat instead. “It felt like you were having a rough time there, Holtzy.”

“Could’ve used a hand,” Holster says. His voice is neutral, but his eyes are asking a very pointed question. Almost a challenge, even. They say,  _ what’re you gonna do about it? _

Their knees touch under the table. A confused, hopeful little scrap of a thrill shoots up Ransom’s leg at the contact. 

Slowly, Ransom says, “Anything to help out my d partner,” like it’s the same as saying  _ let me show you what I’d do.  _ There’s a full moment where Holster’s mouth opens and closes and Ransom waits, breath caught in his throat, for him to say something. Anything.

Their waiter sets the check down on the table between them with an abrupt slap. They split the bill like normal, and he thinks maybe Holster’s moving a little more awkward than before. As if the noise broke some spell brewing between them, serving as a reminder of where they’re supposed to stand. Looking at him across the table, Holster’s hand in easy reach where he’s got it resting on the salt shaker, it’s so hard to think they’re meant to stay there. Just good bros. 

Holster holds the door open when they leave. Ransom doesn’t think he imagines the way Holster brushes the small of his back, just enough to say that Holster’s sure and steady behind him. On a whim he turns and nearly falls against Holster’s chest, losing his balance. 

Holster catches him, laughing and saying, “Falling for me, Rans?”

He rolls his eyes and says, “In your dreams.” It’s safer than saying  _ always.  _

____________

Thursday they’re studying in Faber and Ransom reaches for a highlighter and grazes Holster’s pinky and nearly spontaneously combusts. Holster looks at him through his eyelashes, laughing, and Ransom wants to kiss him. It’d be a bad kiss — Holster laughs with his whole upper body, shoulders shaking and head ducking — but it’d be good too. It’d be truthful. 

____________

They beat Harvard 2-1 on an absolutely gorgeous shot from Bitty with ten seconds to go. Ransom shouts with his team, piling over the boards to pick Bitty up in a massive celly, and finds himself hugging Holster tight instead. 

Holster, yelling with his eyes closed, punching the air as sweat trickles down his nose. Ransom’s so close now he could shake off his gloves and wipe it away. Maybe undo Holster’s helmet and kiss it off instead, him salty and pounding under his lips. His stomach swoops. 

Then Holster grabs his shoulders and presses their helmets together and he is so  _ alive  _ in this moment that Ransom can’t take it, the bright lights gleaming off his cheekbones and hitting his freckles in just the right way, and—

“Kegster!” Holster shouts. He’s still looking at Ransom with a gleam in his eyes. “I’ll get set up, get the fucking word out!”

There’s so much buried in his voice and it’s coming out in his eyes. Holster bumps foreheads again, intentional the way he does anything, and Ransom shivers in something like anticipation. 

____________

The kegster is a riot of people and sounds and those techno colored lights bouncing every which way and Ransom has two beers in him and another in his hand and he wants — steadily, almost soberly, hungrily — wants to kiss up against Holster and see the way he looks when it’s Ransom who’s just been kissing him and stop acting, finally, at last just give  _ in _ and say what he needs. This feels like the moment before the sweetest kind of relief. He thinks about the look in Holster’s eyes on the ice and “not really” and  _ wants _ . 

A hand up his waist. He spins around to find Holster, biting his lip the way he does when he’s unsure of something. For a wild second he thinks Holster is gonna move away; Ransom pins his hand on his waist urgently. Holster needs to keep touching him. He’s tired of pretending he doesn’t. 

“Hey,” Ransom says. He feels wild and full and aching. 

Holster’s lips part. “Hi,” he says back, running his fingers through his hair. “Rans, I think — can we talk? Is that okay?”

Something hot and nervous expands in his stomach. He nods, and they weave their way between everyone else to the stairs. They don’t say all that much — just  _ sorry _ and  _ excuse me _ and  _ all good, no worries _ when they brush past people and when Shitty asks — but Holster keeps his hand on Ransom’s skin. Without thinking about it too much, Ransom eases their fingers together, heart thudding in time with the music. Holster squeezes his hand. He lets go at the landing outside their door. 

Ransom has just turned to close the door, saying, “Everything okay?” when he hears Holster say “Rans” like his name hurt coming out of his throat. He freezes, door still open, and then the floorboards creak before he’s being spun around and Holster’s lips are on his. 

It’s closer to an accidental brush by than a real kiss. Holster’s lips are soft, and sweetly biteable the way he’d dreamed, and Ransom wants more than just a peck. After all this buildup — something more, just a little. He slings his arms around Holster’s neck to pull them closer together and Holster exhales, hard, like he’s surprised by his enthusiasm. Holster’s hands tease his shirt, his abs, the zipper of his jeans, broad and greedy strokes that set all of his nerves on edge in the best kind of way. 

Holster sucks at his neck, teeth scraping his skin, and Ransom’s not acting at all when he gasps. This is the truest he’s been in weeks. He pulls Holster’s shirt up. Holster twines their fingers together, bunching up the fabric over Ransom’s wrist.

A loud noise from downstairs makes Ransom step back instinctively, breathing hard. Holster takes a shuddering breath as the door slams shut. 

He can feel Holster’s heart pounding under his hand. 

“Not exactly what I thought you meant when you said you wanted to talk,” Ransom says weakly. Holster looks just this side of completely undone; it puts him in mind of what they could do if they had the Haus to themselves for a little while. 

Holster laughs a little breathlessly. “Is that something I should apologize for?”

“Why would you?”

“I don’t know,” Holster says softly. Ransom slides their hands up, up, up until his fingers brush the dip in Holster’s collarbone. “It’s just — I see the way you look at me sometimes, Ransy. How come you never see how I’m looking back?”

This is just — “I don’t usually hope like that,” he says, slow. “All the times I wingmanned you, all those times you set me up, I didn’t — all the times it could’ve been you and me but it wasn’t. If you saw how I felt, why didn’t you say something?”

His last sentence is as a whisper into the space between them. He sees the moment they register; Holster’s face softens and tenses at the same time somehow, his body angling so he’s squarely facing Ransom. It’s the deliberate way he sits when he’s trying to be serious. His way of saying  _ I see you _ without saying it out loud _ .  _ Ransom doesn’t know where to look, so he studies his hand on Holster’s chest. 

“I didn’t know how much you felt it,” Holster whispers. He’s looking at their hands too. “I thought you wanted to wait, or didn’t want to feel it, or just didn’t want to say anything.”

Ransom brushes his thumb over Holster’s collarbone, slow enough to broadcast his intentions so Holster can stop him if he wants to. Holster lets go of Ransom’s hand and Ransom freezes, but it’s just so he can loop his fingers into Ransom’s belt loops and tug him more into the room. Into the room and up against the bunk bed and then onto Holster’s comforter, all the whole with his hand still on Holster’s shoulder feeling his muscles move. It strikes him he should probably let go, but when he starts to Holster pins his hand back into place. 

“I want you to hold onto me,” Holster whispers. “This whole time, I want you to hold onto me. I don’t wanna dance around this anymore.”

His words feel like fireworks under Ransom’s skin. Bright and tingling. Real. 

He says, “Okay,” and Holster sighs like he’s just been given something precious beyond anything he’d thought to hope for. And it’s fucking wild, the fact that Ransom can affect him like this. They could’ve been doing this the whole goddamn time. He wants to laugh about it. He clears his throat and the fireworks are in his mouth now, full of possibility. “Where do you want me?”

Holster leans toward him and his first thought is  _ oh, but he’s gorgeous,  _ and his second thought is  _ oh fuck me,  _ and his mind goes blissfully blank when Holster kisses him before he can think of a third. 

“Did we talk about what you wanted to talk about,” Ransom gasps a few minutes later, his shirt with his pants in a pile somewhere. It feels important just now that they talk about it before he forgets or has to pretend not to need to talk about it.

He says, “I don’t want to keep acting,” and Holster looks up at him from between his legs. 

“I know, babe,” Holster tells him. He kisses the inside of Ransom’s left thigh, and it tickles because he’s got the faintest whisper of stubble. He nearly can’t take all Holster’s attentions — he’d underestimated just how good his mouth would feel combined with his hands, the weight of his body. The weight of his words. A little flutter flies around Ransom’s stomach at  _ babe _ . He leafs his hands through Holster’s hair, gently easing him up so he can kiss him properly. Through kisses, Holster adds, “I don’t want to either.” 

____________

Justin Oluransi is not an actor and this time, he’s okay that everyone knows it. Because sitting next to Holster at breakfast, or walking together on their way to class, arms bumping intentionally, or dancing in the wild lights of a kegster with Holster’s arms around his neck and his own on Holster’s waist, or  _ right here _ , waking up next to him in a tiny ass bunk bed with a flood is sunlight streaming in through the window because they forgot to close the curtains after practice last night, Holster whispering  _ good morning _ and himself whispering  _ hey beautiful —  _

“What’re you thinking about?” Holster asks sleepily. Ransom shifts until he’s looking down at Holster, hand splayed on his chest, and Holster smiles and twines their fingers together. 

“I’m thinking I’m gonna hook my finger into your belt loop later,” Ransom says. “Been meaning to do that for awhile now.”

Holster’s smile now is a smile that says  _ you’re a massive dork and I love you _ . “What’s stopping you?”

“You’re not wearing pants.” Ransom flicks his chest. 

“But I will be,” Holster says, and now he sits up so they’re nearly nose to nose. “And then later you’re gonna hook your finger into my belt loop.”

“That’s the plan,” Ransom says. His heart is going so fast. 

Abruptly Holster all but leaps out of bed, scrambling around for his boxers. He nearly falls over putting them on. Ransom watches in bemusement as he stumbles around the room, intentions too pressing for how sleep foggy his mind is, and he’s allowed to find this endearing now. He soaks that feeling in while Holster gets dressed and puts himself together after Ransom has taken him apart last night. It’s such a different thing seeing this happen when it’s after random hookups and when it’s after Ransom knows exactly the sound he makes when he’s nearly over the edge, when it was he himself who pushed him over it. 

A shirt hits him in the face and he blinks, startled. Holster says, “If I’ve gotta be dressed for this, so do you,” and Ransom rolls his eyes but pulls on his shirt. 

These moments. Laughing at the toothpaste Holster gets on his shirt on the daily. Holster making coffee for them both while Bitty chirps at him in the kitchen. Ransom, finger in Holster’s belt loop, walking to Faber with their gear in tow, feeling like himself and just a little in love. More than a little. 

These moments when he remembers how real this is, and tangible, and how he’s allowed to say and do and feel these things? In these moments, right here, Ransom’s the luckiest motherfucker in the fucking world. 

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> Song title comes from “Someone New” by Hozier :)   
Thanks for reading! This has been in my drafts for legit agessss and I just love these boys so much :’)


End file.
